Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-20T02:00:10.104Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Grounding, Fundamentality and Ultimate Explanations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2024

Ricki Bliss
Affiliation:
Lehigh University, Pennsylvania

Summary

There is a long lineage of philosophers concerned with coming to understand what explains everything broadly construed, or within a certain, restricted domain. We call such explanations ultimate explanations. Contemporarily, philosophers of a certain stripe have devoted much attention to the notion of fundamentality - that there is something which is without explanation. This Element explores some of the connections between fundamentality and ultimate explanations both contemporarily and historically.
Get access
Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781009089739
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 04 April 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amijee, F., ‘Principle of Sufficient Reason’, in The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding, Raven, M. J. (ed.), Routledge (2020) pp. 6375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker, J., ‘Against Purity’, Ergo, vol. 9 no. 50 (2023), p. 50. pp. 13811409.Google Scholar
Barker, J., ‘Grounding and the Myth of Ontological Innocence’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 99, no. 2 (2021), pp. 202–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, K., Making Things Up. Oxford University Press (2018).Google Scholar
Bernstein, S., ‘Could a Middle Level be the Most Fundamental?’, Philosophical Studies, vol. 178 (2021), pp. 1065–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, R. L., ‘Viciousness and the Structure of Reality’, Philosophical Studies, vol. 166, no. 2 (2013), pp. 399418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, R., ‘Grounding and Reflexivity’, in Reality and Its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality, R. Bliss and G. Priest (eds.), Oxford University Press (2018), pp. 7090.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, R., ‘Fundamentality’, in The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding, M. J. Raven (ed.), Routledge (2019a), pp. 336–47.Google Scholar
Bliss, R., ‘What Work the Fundamental?’, Erkenntnis, vol. 84, no. 2 (2019b), pp. 359–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, R., ‘Fundamentality’, in The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics, R. Bliss and J. T. M. Miller (eds.), Routledge (2020), pp. 211–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, R., ‘Metaphysical Overdetermination’, Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 73, no. 1 (2023), pp. 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, R. and Priest, G., ‘The Geography of Fundamentality’, in Reality and Its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality, R. Bliss and G. Priest (eds.), Oxford University Press (2018), pp. 134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohn, E., ‘Indefinitely Descending Ground’, in Reality and Its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality, Bliss, R. and Priest, G. (eds.), Oxford University Press (2018), pp. 167–81.Google Scholar
Brenner, A., ‘Metaphysical Foundationalism and Theoretical Unification’, Erkenntnis, vol. 88, no. 4 (2023), pp. 1661–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brenner, A., Maurin, A.-S., Skiles, A., Stenwall, R. and Thompson, N., ‘Metaphysical Explanation’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. N. Zalta (ed.) (2021). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/metaphysical-explanation/Google Scholar
Cameron, R., ‘Turtles All the Way Down: Regress, Priority and Fundamentality’, The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 58, no. 230 (2008), pp. 114.Google Scholar
Cameron, R., ‘Parts Generate the Whole but They Are Not Identical to It’, in Composition as Identity, D. Baxter and A. Cotnoir (eds.), Oxford University Press (2014), pp. 90107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, R., Chains of Being: Infinite Regress, Circularity and Metaphysical Explanation, Oxford University Press (2022).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casati, F., ‘Heidegger and the Contradiction of Being: A Dialetheic Interpretation of the Late Heidegger’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 27, no. 5 (2019), pp. 1002–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casati, F.Heidegger’s Grund: (para-)Foundationalism’, in Reality and Its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality, R. Bliss and G. Priest (eds.), Oxford University Press (2018), pp. 291312.Google Scholar
Casati, F., Heidegger and the Contradiction of Being, Routledge (2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, F., Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, Pennsylvania University Press (1977).Google Scholar
Corkum, , ‘Aristotle’, in The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Ground, M. Raven (ed.), Routledge (2020), pp. 2032.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, S., ‘Metaphysical Rationalism’, Nous, vol. 50, no. 2 (2016), pp. 379418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Della Rocca, M., ‘PSR’, Philosopher’s Imprint, vol. 10, no. 7 (2010), pp. 113.Google Scholar
DeRosset, L., ‘No Free Lunch’, in Varieties of Dependence: Ontological Dependence, Grounding, Supervenience, Response-Dependence, M. Hoetlje, B. Schnieder and A. Steinberg (eds.), Philosophia Verlag (2013a), pp. 243–70.Google Scholar
DeRosset, L., ‘Grounding Explanations’, Philosophers’ Imprint, vol. 13 (2013b), pp. 1–26.Google Scholar
Dixon, T.S., ‘What Is the Well-Foundedness of Grounding?’, Mind, vol. 125, no. 498 (2016), pp. 439–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiddaman, M. and Rodriguez-Pereyra, G., ‘The Razor and the Laser’, Analytic Philosophy, vol. 59, no. 3 (2018), pp. 341–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K., ‘Guide to Ground’, in Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, F. Correia and B. Schneider (eds.), Cambridge University Press (2012), pp. 3780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K., ‘The Question of Realism’, Philosophers’ Imprint, vol. 1 (2001), pp. 130.Google Scholar
Jenkins, C., ‘Explanation and Fundamentality’, in Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, F. Correia and B. Schneider (eds.), Cambridge University Press (2012), pp 211–42.Google Scholar
Jenkins, C., ‘Explanation and Fundamentality’, in Varieties of Dependence: Ontological Dependence, Grounding, Supervenience, Response-Dependence, M. Hoetlje, B. Schnieder and A. Steinberg (eds.), Philosophia Verlag (2013), pp. 211–42.Google Scholar
Koslicki, K., ‘The Coarse-Grainedness of Grounding’, in Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 9 (2015), pp. 306–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leibniz, G. W., Principles of Nature and Grace, J. Bennett (trans.) (2017a).Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W., The Ultimate Origin of Things, J. Bennett (trans.) (2017b).Google Scholar
Lewis, D., ‘The Paradoxes of Time Travel’, American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 2 (1976), pp. 145–52.Google Scholar
Lewis, D., On the Plurality of Worlds, Blackwell (1986).Google Scholar
Lewis, D., ‘Ramseyan Humility’, in Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, D. Braddon-Mitchell and R. Nola (eds.), MIT Press (2009), pp. 203–22.Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J., More Kinds of Being: A Further Study of Individuation, Identity and the Logic of Sortal Terms, Wiley-Blackwell (2009).Google Scholar
Maitzen, S., ‘Questioning the Question’, The Puzzle of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?, T. Goldschmidt (ed.), Routledge (2013), pp. 252–71.Google Scholar
Malink, M., ‘Aristotelian Demonstration’, in The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Ground, M. Raven (ed.), Routledge (2020), pp. 3348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, C., ‘Abelard on Grounding in Ontology and Logic’, in Grounding in Medieval Philosophy, C. Normore and S. Schmid (eds.), Springer (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Maurin, A.-S., ‘Grounding and Metaphysical Explanation: It’s Complicated’, Philosophical Studies, vol. 176 (2019), pp. 1573–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, K. and Moron, J., Everyday Metaphysical Explanation, Oxford University Press (2022).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morganti, M., ‘Dependence, Justification and Explanation: Must Reality Be Well-Founded?’, Erkenntnis vol. 80, no. 3 (2015), pp. 555–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulligan, K., ‘Austro-German Phenomenologists’, in The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding, M. Raven (ed.), Routledge (2020), pp. 90101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Normore C., ‘Up in the Air: Buridan’s Principled Rejection of Grounding’ in Grounding in Medieval Philosophy, C. Normore and S Schmid (eds), Springer (forthcoming).Google Scholar
O’Connor, T., Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency, Blackwell (2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orilia, F., ‘Bradley’s Regress and Ungrounded Dependence Chains: A Reply to Cameron’, Dialectica, vol. 63, no. 3 (2009), pp. 333–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paasch, J. T., ‘Ockham on Priority and Posteriority’, in Grounding in Medieval Philosophy, C. Normore and S. Schmid (eds.), Springer (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Paseau, A., ‘Defining Ultimate Ontological Basis and the Fundamental Layer’, The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 238 (2010), pp. 169–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Priest, G., Beyond the Limits of Thought, Oxford University Press (2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Priest, G., One, Oxford University Press (2011).Google Scholar
Pruss, A., The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment, Cambridge University Press (2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabern, B. and Rabin, G., ‘Well Founding Grounding Grounding’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, vol. 45, no. 4 (2016), pp. 349–79.Google Scholar
Raven, M.J., ‘Ground’, Philosophy Compass, vol. 10, no. 5 (2015), pp. 322–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raven, M.J., ‘Fundamentality without Foundations’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 93, no. 3 (2016), pp. 607–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raven, M.Introduction’, in The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding, M. J. Raven (ed.), Routledge (2020), pp. 114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, G., ‘Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction’, in Modality: Metaphysics, Logic and Epistemology, B. Hale and A. Hoffman (eds.), Oxford University Press (2010), pp. 109–36.Google Scholar
Roski, S., ‘Bolzano’, in The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Ground, M. Raven (ed.), Routledge (2020), pp. 7689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, J., ‘On What Grounds What’, in Metaphysics: New Essays in the Foundations of Ontology, D. Manley, D. Chalmers and R. Wasserman (eds.), Oxford University Press (2009), pp. 347–83.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J., ‘Monism: The Priority of the Whole’, Philosophical Review, vol. 119, no. 1 (2010), pp. 3176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, J., ‘What Not to Multiply without Necessity’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 93, no. 4 (2015), pp. 644–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, T., Writing the Book of the World, Oxford University Press (2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skiles, A., ‘Against Grounding Necessitarianism’, Erkenntnis, vol. 80 (2015), pp. 717–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swiderski, J., ‘Varieties of Metaphysical Coherentism’, Erkenntnis (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Tahko, T., ‘Boring Infinite Descent’, Metaphilosophy, vol. 45, no. 2 (2014), pp. 257–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tahko, T., ‘Boring Infinite Descent’, in Reality and Its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality, R. Bliss and Graham Priest (eds), Oxford University Press (2018), pp. 237–53.Google Scholar
Thom, P., ‘Ground in Avicenna’s Logic’, in Grounding in Medieval Philosophy, C. Normore and S. Schmid (eds.), Springer (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Thomasson, A., Ordinary Objects, Oxford University Press (2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, N., ‘Metaphysical Interdependence’, in Reality Making, M. Jago (ed.), Oxford University Press (2016), pp. 3855.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, N., ‘Metaphysical Interdependence, Epistemic Coherentism and Holistic Explanation’, in Reality and Its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality, R. Bliss and G. Priest (eds.), Oxford University Press (2018), pp. 107–25.Google Scholar
Ward, T., ‘The Incoherence of Ockham’s Ethics’, in Grounding in Medieval Philosophy, C. Normore and S. Schmid (eds.), Springer (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Wilson, J., ‘No Work for a Theory of Grounding’, Inquiry, vol. 57, no. 5–6 (2014), pp. 535–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Grounding, Fundamentality and Ultimate Explanations
  • Ricki Bliss, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania
  • Online ISBN: 9781009089739
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Grounding, Fundamentality and Ultimate Explanations
  • Ricki Bliss, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania
  • Online ISBN: 9781009089739
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Grounding, Fundamentality and Ultimate Explanations
  • Ricki Bliss, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania
  • Online ISBN: 9781009089739
Available formats
×